Pizarro: A new business is growing in San Jose's Japantown

Over the past few weeks, the courtyard of Ken Matsumoto's Art Object Gallery in San Jose's Japantown has been transformed from its landscape of concrete and stone into a garden of flowers, succulents, vines and bonsai trees. And beyond the lush greenery, there's a new partnership growing there, too.

Yen Do and her husband, Tung, were greeted by Matsumoto when they came by in January to ask about some of his pieces as he was working in the courtyard on his art -- "making little stones out of big stones" is how he describes it. He mentioned he'd often thought about a nursery operation as a complementary business to his stone work.

"People often walk into a nursery with the same attitude and sense of wonder as when viewing art at a gallery," he said.

A week later, Matsumoto sat down with the couple and Paul Sakamoto -- the master horticulturist who founded Sakamoto Plants in Los Gatos -- to seriously talk about opening a garden shop in the middle of Japantown. And this Saturday from 4 to 8 p.m., the community can celebrate the grand opening of Japonica: A Gallery of Garden Ornamentals at 592 N. Fifth St.

"Paul is the spiritual leader and plays the key role in this endeavor," Matsumoto says. "He brings knowledge, and a discriminating artistic eye developed over years of involvement in horticulture."

Advertisement

MINDING YOUR MIND: Brains will be on the minds of people in downtown San Jose on Thursday with more than 2,000 people expected at the GPU Technology Conference at the San Jose McEnery Convention Center. Keynote speaker Adam Gazzaley of UCSF will talk about how video games can enhance the brain's information processing system.

Also that evening, the public can join the brainy conversation at a Silicon Valley Reads event at the Tech Museum where a panel will debate "Is Too Much Information, Too Fast, Too Much Of A Good Thing?" Moderated by my colleague, Mercury News Editorial Page Editor Barbara Marshman, the panel includes Nicholas Carr, author of "The Shallows: What The Internet Is Doing To Our Brains," Zack Lynch of the Neurotechnology Industry Organization and UC-Santa Cruz computer science professor Marilyn Walker. It starts at 6:30 p.m. and admission is free.

RIGHT HOSPITAL, WRONG CITY: Gremlins must have commandeered my keyboard earlier this week when I wrote about a robotic surgery center opening at Good Samaritan Hospital. Of course, that's Good Sam at 2425 Samaritan Drive in San Jose, not in Palo Alto, which is what I had in Monday's column.